Subject: Re: corba or sockets?
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: 03 Nov 2000 02:17:46 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3182206666752841@naggum.net>
* Jon S Anthony <jsa@synquiry.com>
| You either didn't understand this part before or for some reason
| actually believe that even with this piece considered the point made
| still makes little to no sense.
I considered it a fairly unintelligent point to make. It is a given
that we do not set out to waste resources. If you have to argue
against people who do, that is certainly not my problem, but I find
it oddly amusing to watch people who make such assumptions about
others, as the only place this acquired stupidity can grow is where
there is utter disregard for technical decisions.
| I believe my view of analyzing the tradeoffs of "build vs buy" in
| this area and makeing choices based on firm technical requirements
| and value added is exactly the correct way to proceed in such cases.
Of course. The interesting question is, however, what would make
you change your mind, not what makes you convinced you are right.
for all I know or care, you could be psychologically impelled to
defend your choice and work hard to rationalize it after the fact.
| Perhaps a major difference here is that your business is not product
| centered/oriented, whereas ours is.
Another fairly unintelligent point. The question is which products,
if this makes an interesting distinction, which I don't think it does.
I think the explanation for our differences in view (and the reason
you are not really listening) is that you seem to be venture capital
funded, while we're making and spending our own money and can afford
research that does not contribute to the first quarter bottom line.
This is one of the reasons I'm working for a very solid company and
have rejected golden-edged job offers from venture capital-funded
pies in the sky. I don't need bonuses or stock options to enjoy my
work here, and I do see the hoping for that big cash hand-out as a
huge misfeature where it is offered the employees. I do not play
the lottery or bet on horses, either. We have a product that sells
well, has significant growth potential, and I'm free to do whatever
I think can contribute to that growth, including going away for a
year to do weird stuff that they trust me implicitly to be good for
the company, work on and with Common Lisp, etc. Consequently, I
find your attitude both condescending and ignorant at the same time.
We live in a time when information technology is seen as magic by
people who have only figured out that there is gold somewhere, but
not how to find it or encourage anybody to find it. I have extreme
distaste for venture capital in such an ignorant climate. If you
are indeed venture capital-funded and have chosen CORBA because you
think you'll avoid some expenditures tha would scare your investors
and leave you stranded, I'd have to put your analysis in the "play
it safe" category, rather than "play it intelligently, long range",
and I am no longer impressed with your choice of CORBA and what you
claim it does for you.
Simply put: I have come to doubt that you have the resources to make
intelligent choices, but have to make choices based on insufficient
data and cannot afford to go wrong. Instead of being able to afford
to go wrong with your own money, a venture capitalist keeps a lot of
people on a taut leash and while he can afford to go wrong quite
often to make it big on a few, each of his "puppies" have to show
early signs of success or be wasted. This isn't _investment_ in my
view, it's playing the lottery with other people's jobs and brains.
Lotteries don't do it for me. I find no thrill in accidents.
#:Erik
--
Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One?
-- George W. Bush